Is “political correctness” the ultimate hack of the Left?
Yes says I, in my latest Bloomberg column. Here is one bit:
To put it simply, the American left has been hacked, and it is now running in a circle of its own choosing, rather than focusing on electoral victories or policy effectiveness. Too many segments of the Democratic Party are self-righteously talking about identity politics, and they are letting other priorities slip.
Of course there is a lot of racism out there, which makes political correctness all the more tempting. Yet polling data suggests that up to 80 percent of Americans are opposed to politically correct thinking in its current manifestations. Latinos and Asian-Americans are among the groups most opposed, and even 61 percent of self-professed liberals do not like political correctness.
I give some examples (Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard lawsuit) of how these issues can harm the fortunes of the Left. Here is the basic model:
I now wonder if, in the internet era, every political movement is hackable. Political involvement requires a certain kind of ideological motivation, and ideologies are imperfectly rational. So a smart hacker can redirect the attention of groups in other, less productive directions. Just put some inflammatory words or video on the internet and you can induce the left to talk more about identity politics.
Consider that political action is a public good (bad) of sorts, motivated in part by private expressive concerns. Pursuing expressive action can lead to results-oriented value (disvalue). So find the people who are acting that way, and put a “expressive value only” version of the dog bone before them, to compete with what they have been chasing.
The correct “hacking” words, memes, and images are found by trial and error, but once the fervently expressive left-wing responses are observed, the techniques are honed and refined pretty quickly.
And what about the hacking of the Right?
Has the right-wing been hacked? I suspect so. The president himself is part of the hack, and the core motivation is the desire to “own the libs,” a phrase I didn’t hear much five years ago. We’ve now entered an era in which too many are self-obsessed and too few are effective.
Of course a few questions come to mind:
1. Are all views hackable in this manner?
No, but views which appeal to moral superiority are usually hackable, because displays of the resulting preening are often counterproductive.
2. Once a hack occurs, can you reverse it or defend against it?
Knowledge is not always as useful as you might think.
3. Has libertarianism been hacked?
Yes, it was hacked into an ill-conceived alliance with Republicans on too many issues, under the promise of some policy victories.
4. Do the hacks on each side interact?
Well, if conservatives feel they “own the libs” by irritating their sense of political correctness, the polarization can explode pretty quickly.
Addendum: There is also this paragraph in the piece:
The biggest day-to-day losers from the political correctness movement are other left-of-center people, most of all white moderate Democrats, especially those in universities. If you really believe that “the PC stuff” is irrational and out of control and making institutions dysfunctional, and that universities are full of left-of-center people, well who is going to suffer most of the costs? It will be people in the universities, and in unjust and indiscriminate fashion. That means more liberals than conservatives, if only because the latter are relatively scarce on the ground.
Recommended.